From the Prison Island of Cuba, 750 Opponents Warn:
The Pope's Trip Can Be Exploited by Castro

THE BITTER FRUITS OF VATICAN "OSTPOLITIK"

Cubanos Desterrados - Cubans in Exile - Miami (FL)Contents

1. Religious Persecution in Today's Cuba

2. In Havana, Papal Nuncio Refuses to Receive the Opposition
3. Vatican "Ostpolitik": A "Pact with the Devil"?
4. From a "Church of Martyrs" to One of "Traitors"?
5. Living Martyrs of the Faith and of Vatican "Ostpolitik"
6. One Cannot Compromise with Communism
7. The Church and the Communist Regime: the Impossible Coexistence
8. "Reconciliation" between Good and Evil?
9. The "Complicit Silence" of Church Authorities
10. Supplication to the Virgin of Caridad del Cobre, Patroness of Cuba

Miami's Cubanos Desterrados association manifests its adhesion to the lucid letter that 750 Cuban dissidents and opponents have just sent H.H. Benedict XVI regarding his upcoming visit to the Island-prison of Cuba from March 26 to 28.

1. Religious Persecution in Today's Cuba

In that historic document, these peaceful but valiant opponents of Communist tyranny say they would undoubtedly be "very happy to receive You in our country if the message of love and hope You could bring us also served to stop the ongoing repression against those who want to help the Church."

Opponents manifest concern over the fact that police and psychological persecution has continued even after the papal trip was announced, and give several recent examples. Such concern is entirely understandable when one bears in mind that the Communists did not bother to stop the repression, even for merely cosmetic purposes, after the Pope's visit was announced. So the fear the document's signers manifest to Benedict XVI is fully justified:

"Your presence on the island would be like sending oppressors the message that they can go on doing whatever they want because the Church will allow them to. Indeed, the fact that your visit has been known for a few months now has posed no obstacle for the regime to increase the number of arrests and violently punish religious, political and social activities. May the Blessed Trinity illuminate your mind and enable you to make the right decision. Amen" ii.

2. In Havana, Papal Nuncio Refuses to Receive the Opposition

The Cuban Catholic faithful, both on the island and in exile, were profoundly saddened by the disclosure by former political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque, a respected and respectable figure of the opposition on the island-prison and one of the inspirers of the letter to Benedict XVI, that for a whole month they asked the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See in Cuba, Msgr. Bruno Musaro, to receive them at an audience so they could deliver the letter to him, but never received any answer.

At the very moment that prison gates open wide to receive new political prisoners, the doors of the Apostolic Nunciature are hermetically shut to those in the Christian flock who ask for nothing more than having their supplication relayed to the Shepherd of Shepherds. This 'door-shut-in-your-face' episode may go into the history of unfortunate Cuban Catholics as one of the bitterest passages in their way of the cross, now longer than a half-century.

The signers of the letter had no other recourse but to send it via email to their high-ranking recipient and then on to various media.

Journalist Juan O. Tamayo, of Miami's El Nuevo Herald, notes that this respectful but firm letter is "the most recent manifestation of Cuban dissidents worried that the Pope's visit will only serve to legitimize the government of Raul Castro and do little or nothing to improve the human rights situation." The episode with the Apostolic Nunciature only makes those concerns even more poignant.

3. Vatican "Ostpolitik": A "Pact with the Devil"?

For his part, journalist Victor Gaetan, international correspondent of the National Catholic Register, writes that in his visit to Cuba, Benedict XVI may continue the Vatican's diplomatic strategy of "diligently avoid any political confrontation with the Castro regime, collaborate with Havana to combat the U.S.-led embargo, and support the Cuban government's incremental economic reforms."

Gaetan says that the strategy being applied in Cuba is the so-called "Ostpolitik" The Vatican carried out at the time of the Cold War toward the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

Nevertheless, as Gaetan notes, just as "Ostpolitik" in Europe caused credibility problems for the Church, it may be doing the same right now and continue to do so in a post-Castro Cuba. In this sense, the Catholic journalist warns,

"The risk the Church runs in a post-Castro future is that it will be castigated for having made a pact with the devil." iii.

4. From a "Church of Martyrs" to One of "Traitors"?

In 1986, Msgr. Pedro Meurice, then Archbishop of Santiago, clearly perceived this risk. At the collaborationist Cuban National Ecclesial Encounter held that year, he crudely recognized the concept that many Catholic faithful on the island had come to form of their Pastors: "They deemed us a Church of martyrs and now some are saying we are a Church of traitors" (cf. La Voz Católica, Archdiocese of Miami, March 14, 1986, p. 15).

5. Living Martyrs of the Faith and of Vatican "Ostpolitik"

In their own time, living martyrs of the faith such as Cardinals Mindszenty, Stepinac and Slipyj, respectfully but firmly manifested their objections to this diplomacy of dialogue and rapprochement with Communist regimes.

A few years ago, the launching in Rome of the memoirs of the late Cardinal Casaroli (Il martirio della pazienza, Einaudi Editore), former Secretary of State of the Holy See and promoter of Vatican "Ostpolitik," revived controversy about this sensitive issue. One of the most critical voices was that of Slovak Cardinal Ján Korec Slovak, created cardinal in 1991 and one of the most important living witnesses of Ostpolitik in Czechoslovakia. In an interview to the newspaper Il Giornale, the cardinal called it a "catastrophe" for the Church in that country, as it "liquidated" the activity of Catholics who resisted communism in exchange for "vague and uncertain promises by the Communists." On the Communist side, the whole thing was nothing but a "farce" which "continues today in China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam," Cardinal Korec added.

On the alleged effectiveness of that policy to achieve freedom in Communist nations, Cardinal Korec asked, "Why, then is China still the same China, Vietnam remains the same Vietnam, and Cuba, above all, remains the same Cuba?" ("I martiri dell'Est - L'Ostpolitik di Casaroli danneggiò i cattolici" - Interview with Slovak Cardinal Korec, Il Giornale, Italy, July 18, 2000). Twelve years later, Cardinal Korec's words remain as crucially relevant as ever.

6. One Cannot Compromise with Communism

The association, Cubanos Desterrados, has published and contributed to disseminate numerous documents, including books, regarding Vatican Ostpolitik toward Cuba and the relations of Cuban bishops with the Communist regime. Among these documents stand out, "A Respectful and Filial Appeal of Miami Refugees to the Common Father of Christendom," 1987, on the occasion of the visit of His Holiness John Paul II to Miami; "How Long will the Americas Tolerate Dictator Castro? Two Decades of Increasing Communist-Catholic Rapprochement on the Caribbean Island Prison," Miami-New York, 1990; "Communist Cuba, 1997: A Shame of Our Time and Our Continent - Dramatic Aspects of the Island Prison on the Eve of the Papal Visit," Miami, 1997; "Communist Cuba After the Papal Visit - Burning Issues of the Present Religious and Political Situation on the Island Prison;" by the Studies Committee for Freedom in Cuba, Miami, 1998, a book which respectfully analyzes the papal allocutions from the standpoint of Vatican Ostpolitik.

7. The Church and the Communist State: The Impossible CoexistenceCubanos Desterrados has based its statements on the painful ecclesiastical collaboration with Cuban communism on the many works by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, a Brazilian intellectual who dedicated his life to denounce leftist infiltration in Catholic circles. His thought has had a decisive influence on Cuban exiles, who for many decades followed his articles in Miami's Diario Las Americas. Special mention should be made of his essay, The Church and the Communist State: the Impossible Coexistence (1963). In it, Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira develops the thesis that "The Church cannot accept a freedom which would involve Her being silent about the errors of the Communist regime, thus creating the impression among the people that She does not condemn them." The pressure that Communist regimes exercise over the peoples under their yoke is unprecedented in history because of its comprehensive doctrinal content, subtle and multifaceted methods, and brutal when it comes to violent action. Therefore, facing a totally anti-Christian State, there is no other way to avoid its influence but to educate the faithful on everything that is wrong and perverse with that regime, and emphasize the need for private property, based on two Commandments of the Law of God, the 7th and 10th.

When this essay was published, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira received a letter of praise from the Vatican Congregation of Seminaries and Universities referring to him as "deservedly famous for his philosophical, historical and sociological science" and to the study as a "most faithful echo" of papal teaching.

8. "Reconciliation" between Good and Evil?

Mrs. Sylvia G. Iriondo, one of the leading Cuban exiles in the United States, just published in Diario las Americas of Miami a convincing analysis of a planned pilgrimage of Catholic exiles to Cuba, organized by the Archdiocese of Miami, on the occasion of Benedict XVI's visit to the place.Mrs. Iriondo reveals that the list of candidates to the pilgrimage was submitted to the regime in Havana to be analyzed by Cuban censors, and the names of potential pilgrims who had expressed the slightest criticism of Cuban communism were vetoed or suppressed. This is an indication of how the Communist government continues to act with brutality, including in the backstage, to retain both a camouflaged and ostensive control of the smallest details related to the papal visit.

Mrs. Iriondo also says: "The chosen name, 'pilgrimage of reconciliation', is itself a distortion of Cuba's sad reality. The problem is not 'reconciliation' between Cuban exiles and those on the island--we are one people--but stems from the urgent need to establish the rule of law, justice and freedom, which we have a duty to defend and a commitment to achieve."

9. The "Complicit Silence" of Church Authorities

Writing about the way in which Church leaders on the island have spoken or failed to do so, preferring to keep a complicit silence rather than to proclaim the truth, iv. Mrs. Iriondo concludes that "interests have been placed above sacred principles in exchange for some concessions that ratify precisely the totalitarian nature of the regime. This is incompatible with the Christian religious values for which so many Cuban martyrs were executed by firing squad, shouting 'Viva Cristo Rey."

10. Supplication to the Virgin of Caridad del Cobre, Patroness of Cuba

From its exile, the Cuban Desterrados association, while reaffirming its unconditional obedience to the Church and the Papacy according to the terms stipulated by the Code of Canon Law, defends as being the entirely lawful right and duty of Cuban Catholics, on the island and in exile, to respectfully oppose the orientation of Vatican diplomacy and of the Cuban bishops, which has been applied in Cuba for many decades, inasmuch as it is at variance with the traditional line the Church has adopted regarding communism, and inasmuch as its bitter fruits have shown to be, to paraphrase Cardinal Korec, a "catastrophe" in the life of the Cuban Church and of Cuban society in general.

Finally, Cubanos Desterrados beseech the Virgin of Caridad del Cobre, Patroness of Cuba, not to allow the Communist regime to manipulate the papal visit; to strengthen in their faith the suffering Cubans on the island; and to hasten the day when our beloved country is liberated.